


The Cat who Came to Tea

by EleniaTrexer



Category: A Practical Guide to Evil - erraticerrata
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29060895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EleniaTrexer/pseuds/EleniaTrexer
Summary: “I suppose it helps you have a Callowan in charge of the legion,” she decided, then turned a curious eye on me. “You ever met her, the Squire?”“A few times,” I agreed.(Book  2, chapter 28)
Kudos: 22





	The Cat who Came to Tea

Of course, what they served wasn’t _really_ tea. Not, at least, according to some of the legionaries that Louise had overheard, complaining because their own private stocks of tea had run out. Nonetheless, the girl that came in had ordered a cup of tea with her very Callowan breakfast, and she didn’t seem inclined to turn her nose up at the fare.

There were only a handful of people in the inn’s combined dining- and common room that morning, all of them faces that Louise recognised. People trying for just a little bit of normalcy. Heavens knew there’d been precious little of that in the last months. Marchford had been hosting armies for the better part of a year, and the situation outside was enough to make Louise glad for their current _guests_. With rumours of devils and demons and gods knew what out in the hills, a thousand or so legionaries didn’t seem such a terrible thing. Not such a good thing, either, but the Countess had left the town with anyone in fighting fit, and there was hardly anyone else around willing to fight.

Still, it didn’t hurt to be wary. The legionaries were better-behaved than the Exiled Prince’s host had been, but they were still soldiers sworn to Praes and there _had_ been incidents. Nothing too awful, and quickly resolved by the unsettling orc they called Deadhand, but still. If anything happened here, it would be more trouble than Louise wanted, and so she kept as watchful an eye on her few other customers as she did the lone legionary. That was how she managed to miss Lily’s interest in the girl until it was too late.

Fear made her rash, and she was shouting for Lily to get away before her brain caught up and reminded her that doing so was probably as unwelcome to the soldier as Lily’s intrusion might be. She did not quite manage to hide her surprise when the girl assured her of the opposite, but she sat nonetheless, fuelled in equal parts by her worry for her daughter and her own curiosity. It was Lily who picked up on the girl’s Deoraithe colouring: months on the march had darkened her skin, and in her legionary’s armour she could be mistaken for Praesi by anyone trying not to pay too much particular attention. Louise felt a little bit more at ease. The girl _was_ Callowan then, or Callowan enough, and really Louise should have realised right then, but the girl was just so _small_. Lily would probably be taller than her in four or five years, and in Louise’s mind’s eye, the woman who’d laid waste to Summerholm _twice_ was not of a height with an eleven-year-old.

She remembered hearing, dimly, the Squire telling her to take her family into the heart of town, but all she could think about as she looked at the two golden coins the young Villain had left behind was that the Squire had been having _sport_ with her.

Gods help her. Gods help them all.


End file.
